Huntington Bancshares in Columbus, Ohio, withstood issues in its energy portfolio to report higher quarterly profit.
The $73 billion-asset company said in a press release Wednesday that its first-quarter profit rose 3% from a year earlier to $171.3 million.
Huntington’s revenue rose 7% to $754.1 million. Total loans increased 8% to $51.5 billion, while deposits rose 6% to $65.5 million.
While overall credit quality remained solid, the company ran into problems with what it termed “a small number of energy sector loan relationships.” As a result, nonperforming assets jumped 31% to $525 million. Still, Huntington’s ratio of nonperforming loans to total loans ended the quarter at a manageable 1.02%. The energy portfolio represents less than 1% of total loans.
“You’ve heard me say this in the past and I’ll say it again; our focus remains on growing revenue,” Steinour said during a conference call to discuss quarterly results. “We continue to grow revenue despite a challenging environment.”
Steve Steinour, Huntington’s chairman, president, and chief executive, said he expects the company to achieve revenue growth of 4% to 6% this year. He said Huntington plans to complete its acquisition of the $25.4 billion-asset FirstMerit in the third quarter. The deal, announced in January, is expected to be immediately accretive to Huntington’s earnings.
